PLANNING WATCH / PLAN-IT LOS ANGELES

Supply-Siders Chase their Last Mirage: Developers Making a Bundle On Middle Class Housing  Dick Platkin, CityWatchLA, August 27, 2020 PLANNING WATCH -If you ever feel like the fictional newscaster Howard Beale in Network, who screamed at his television audience, “I just can’t take it anymore,” I have a simple remedy for you.   Spend some time with supply-side dead-enders, and you will be good for another 15 rounds. As I recently discovered, they are chasing a mirage, an illusory formula of zoning deregulation that allows real estate speculators to get rich by building middle class housing. Their belief in the power of market forces is astonishing, especially because they ignore contrary evidence sitting in plain view on nearly every Los Angeles street. In their inverse universe, long gone public housing programs and socia...

City Hall Opposes Real Estate Scams in Sacramento, but Welcomes Similar Proposals in its own Backyard By Dick Platkin, CityWatchLA, August 20, 2020 PLANNING WATCH -In Los Angeles City Councilmembers Herb Wesson and Paul Koretz have taken a forceful stand against State Senator Scott Wiener’s nine piecemealed housing bills, especially Senate Bill 1120 . They replace Wiener’s defeated Senate Bill 50, but their impact will be the same: rampant up-zoning of privately owned parcels justified by the specious claim that up-zoning solves California’s house crisis. We just need to “unleash the private sector” by scaling back zoning and environmental laws because they are a drag on developer profits. Then, private real estate investors/speculators will do the rest. Once they can make even money, these scammers will build...